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Mike Mearls interview at Slashdot

Mike Mearls is the Senior Manager for the Dungeons and Dragons Design Team. He's been with D&D publishers Wizards of the Coast (a subsidiary of Hasbro) since 2005, Before that he was a free-lance game writer and designer. In this conversation with Slashdot editor Rob "samzenpus" Rozeboom, he talks about changes in the latest version of D&D and how the company interacts with players. Stuff we've heard before - the interview is clearly aimed at people just hearing about the new version of D&D.

I'd say it was pretty light on content, but overall an interesting listen into the "meta" side of the design. Of course, being a Senior Manager this is kind of expected.

Mike starts off talking a bit about the purpose of Next, specifically in the context of 3E and 4E. He also touches a bit on the theory of mechanics - for example, saving throws moved to abilities to make more sense in the world.

He goes on to talk about feedback - one of the main missions is to connect with all players, referencing back to the first question. Especially he mentions the dichotomy between seeing problems from a designer's point of view versus a player's. He gives an example of critical hits not being exciting.

Id feel better about the design decisions if I could see the same feedback that the designers are looking at. Mainly polls and syntheses. The Wizards.com website is actually pretty good at showing the onsite results. But we have no idea about the feedback from elsewhere. Some decisions are truly shocking (resurrecting vancian, killing defenses - so only players who choose noncasters get the satisfaction of rolling dice to determine their own fate, and so on). If I could see the feedback from other places truly represent the majority of players, I would feel better about these kinds of decisions. At least I can be happy for those who want it, even if I myself dont understand it. As of now. Im just going on trust.

Id feel better about the design decisions if I could see the same feedback that the designers are looking at. Mainly polls and syntheses. The Wizards.com website is actually pretty good at showing the onsite results. But we have no idea about the feedback from elsewhere. Some decisions are truly shocking (resurrecting vancian, killing defenses - so only players who choose noncasters get the satisfaction of rolling dice to determine their own fate, and so on). If I could see the feedback from other places truly represent the majority of players, I would feel better about these kinds of decisions. At least I can be happy for those who want it, even if I myself dont understand it. As of now. Im just going on trust.

Actually there are many spells that require an attack roll in D&D Next. FWIW

"I wish I had a Kryptonite cross, because then you could keep both Dracula AND Superman away"